Filed to story: Kissed by Claw and Fang
“Yeah.” His dark, bemused eyes search my face. “Here I am.”
Silence echoes between us-dark, loaded, unfathomable-even as tension stretches taut as a circus high wire.
I should go.
He should go.
Neither of us moves. I’m not sure I even breathe.
Finally, Zane breaks the stillness-though not the tension-by taking a step closer to me. Then another and another, until the only thing that separates us is the bulky weight of my coat and the thinnest sliver of air.
Chills that have nothing to do with the cold and everything to do with Zane’s proximity dance up and down my spine.
My heart pounds.
My head swims.
My mouth goes desert dry.
And the rest of me doesn’t fare much better…especially when Zane reaches for my gloved hand, rubs his thumb back and forth across my palm.
“What were you and Sebastian talking about?” he asks after a second. “At the party?”
“I honestly don’t remember.” Which sounds like a cop-out answer, but it’s really just the truth. With Zane touching me, I’m lucky to remember my own name.
He doesn’t challenge my words. But the corners of his lips tip up in a very self-satisfied smile as he murmurs, “Good.”
His smirk jump-starts my brain-finally-and then it’s my turn to ask a question. “What were you and Lia fighting about?”
I don’t know what I expect-his gaze to go flat again, probably, or for him to tell me that it’s none of my business. Instead, he says, “My brother,” in a tone that doesn’t ask for sympathy and warns that he won’t permit it.
It’s not the answer I was expecting, but as the very few pieces I have start fitting themselves together in my head, my heart plummets. “Was…was Hudson your brother?”
For the first time, I see genuine surprise in his eyes. “Who told you about Hudson?”
“Lia did. Last night when we were having tea. She mentioned that-” I break off at the glacial coldness in his eyes.
“What did she tell you?” The words are quiet, but that only makes them hit harder. As does the way he drops my hand.
I swallow, then finish in a rush. “Just that her boyfriend died. She didn’t say anything about you at all. I just took a guess that her boyfriend might also be…”
“My brother? Yeah, Hudson was my brother.” The words drip ice, in an effort-I think-to keep me from knowing how much they hurt. But I’ve been there, have spent weeks doing the same thing, and he doesn’t fool me.
“I’m sorry,” I tell him, and this time I’m the one who reaches for him. The one whose fingers whisper over his wrist and the back of his hand. “I know it doesn’t mean anything, that it doesn’t touch the kind of grief you’re feeling. But I truly am sorry you’re hurting.”
For long seconds, he doesn’t say anything. Just watches me with those dark eyes that see so much and show so little. Finally, when I’m searching my brain for something else to say, he asks, “What makes you think I’m hurting?”
“Aren’t you?” I challenge.
More silence. Then, “I don’t know.”
I shake my head. “I don’t know what that means.”
He shakes his head, then moves back several feet. My hand clenches, missing the feel of him under my fingers.
“I have to go.”
“Wait.” I know better, but I reach for him again. I can’t help it. “Just like that?”
He lets me hold his hand for one second, two. Then he turns and walks back down the path to the pond so fast, it’s nearly a run.
I don’t even bother trying to keep up. If I’ve learned anything in the last couple of days, it’s that when Zane Vale wants to disappear, he disappears, and there’s nothing I can do about it. Instead, I turn in the other direction and head back to the castle.
Now that I have a set destination in mind, the walk seems much faster than my original wandering did. But I still can’t shake the uncomfortable feeling that I’m being watched. Which is absurd, considering Zane went in the other direction and Lia disappeared right after her argument with him.
The feeling stays with me the whole time I’m outside. And something else is niggling at me, too, something I can’t quite figure out. At least not until I reach the warmth and safety of the castle-and my room. It’s as I’m peeling off all the layers I’m wearing that it finally hits me.
Neither Lia nor Zane was wearing a jacket.
It’s Discretion, not Diamonds,
That’s a
Girl’s Best Friend
“You sure you’re up for this?” Macy asks several hours later as I grab a sweatshirt from my closet.
Is she kidding? “Not even a little bit.”
“That’s what I figured.” She heaves a huge sigh. “We could cancel if you want. Tell everyone you’re still not over the altitude sickness.”
“And have Sebastian think I’m chicken? No thank you.” I actually couldn’t care less if Sebastian thinks I’m afraid or not. But Macy has been so excited about this snowball fight that there’s no way I’m going to take it away from her. The fact that she offered to cancel because she knows I’m not into it only makes me more determined to go. “We’re doing this snowball fight and we’re going to…”